Way back in 2009, we announced that former Diablo Project Lead David Brevik would be taking the reins of the Marvel MMO from Gazillion. Now, four years later after putting in some time for this edition of the Monday Freeview, it is quite easy for us to see where his influence came in. For those who haven’t been following it or seen the fantastic advertisements on the side of the Flickcast (cheap plug), Gazillion has been working on a Marvel based MMO for quite some time. Late to the game by comparison to City of Heroes, Champions Online and DC Universe Online, there was wonder as to how the Marvel MMO would stand out amongst the pack. These other games had pretty much done the best they could with an MMO RPG style game where players were able to create their own custom heroes and then play alongside iconic NPCs.

The answer from Gazillion was to switch up the formula. Not only does Marvel Heroes let players take on the roles of various Marvel icons, it completely changes the gameplay as well. Instead of the large, persistent world that MMO players are used it, the players of Marvel Heroes are treated to a series of instanced dungeon crawls much more akin to Diablo. Like we said, David Brevik made his presence known. What this ends up doing is creating a game that could almost be described as an introduction to the Diablo playstyle.

Players in Marvel Heroes spend a lot of their time clicking and use various special attacks to take down enemy after enemy from an isometric birds-eye view. While there isn’t as much loot being dropped in a Diablo game, there is still a pretty steady rate at which players pop open their inventory and compares stats on their gear to what they just picked up.

The structure of Marvel Heroes storytelling is also very similar to Diablo as well with chapters and quests players progress through and are able to team up with other players on. Using hub destinations, players travel to their instanced missions instead of living in the traditional persistent world. Again, this resembles much of the old school Diablo setup.

For MMO players who are looking for a change of pace or Diablo players who have simply run out of content, Marvel Heroes is a strong option for either party. With way more options for characters to play as than Diablo since players are able to unlock more and more heroes as they progress, there is certainly more quantity in terms of leveling up and customizing builds of characters. You can find the download client here for Marvel Heroes from Gazillion, currently only available for the PC.